Costa Concordia salvage team brings in Microperi 61 platform

A platform, the Microperi 61, has arrived on scene at the island of Giglio to help refloat the stricken Costa Concordia. The platform has arms to work undersea and set up scaffolding to build a foundation to keep the ship stable.

The platform is a rectangle and 40.5 meters by 28.65 meters. It has 4 'legs', each 47 meters by 1.8 meters in diameter, which can be extended down into the sea to a depth' of 32 meters. The goal is to block the ship from sliding downward and then attach a massive balloon to the side still above water, and pull it upright. They must also repair breaks in the hull that occurred when the Costa Concordia hit the rocks.

Titan Salvage and Microperi

The job to refloat the boat is being done by the American company Titan Salvage in conjunction with Microperi, an Italian company. This phase of the operation, stabilizing the boat, is expected to take until the end of the August. In under a year they expect to have the boat refloated and towed to an as yet undetermined port to be scrapped.

There were over 4200 passengers and crew onboard when the ship went down on Jan. 13 after Captain Francesco Schettino took it too close to shore, reportedly to show off to someone on the island. Thirty-two people died, with 30 bodies having been recovered to date.

A Dutch film company, Prorama, has a camera in place and is filming the salvage operation, intending to create time-lapse movies of the boat's refloating and removal. They have a site up, The Last Salute, where a live feed can be viewed during daylight hours.

The Microperi has been placed right alongside the stricken cruise ship.